1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to tools for cutting components of window coverings, and more particularly to a cutting machine, which is convenient and easy to use.
2. Description of Related Art
It is known in the art that a window covering can be installed either inside a window opening (i.e., inside mount) or outside a window opening (i.e., outside mount). For inside mount, in order to ensure the window covering can be smoothly closed or raised after installation, the window covering has to be slightly smaller than the window opening; as for outside mount, the window covering is generally required to be able to cover the whole window opening, so the window covering has to be larger than the window opening.
In spite of there being standard component of window coverings in several sizes available on the market, a standard component typically still needs to be cut to fit a window opening, for there is no consistent size for window openings of different or even the same buildings. The convention way of determining a cut length for a standard component, say slats of a vertical blind, uses a simple ruler with the help of visual estimation; the length of the beam of the window covering and the installation method (i.e., either inside mount or outside mount) should be taken into account as well. However, it seems inevitable to cut too much or too less from time to time, and the resultant slats of a vertical blind may therefore fail to meet the consumer's expectation. If the error is too great, the window covering would be unusable and has to be discarded, which is wasteful. In this sense, the conventional method of cutting window coverings still has room for improvement.
In addition, it's common to stack slats on a worktable of a cutting machine, and if the stacked slats are not appropriately supported or fixed, some of the slats may be biased or shifted, which causes an irregular cut surface. Furthermore, the top surface of the stacked slats is much higher than the surface of the worktable, and therefore the stacked slats have an obvious protrusion at where the slats are supposed to be cut, which may cause slight differences in length among different slats. Though now there are worktables provided with a raised structure, which helps to keep the surface of the staked slats parallel to the worktable to overcome the problem of inconsistent lengths, the complexity of using such a cutting machine is increased as a side effect. On the other hand, the raised structure makes it more difficult to support or fix the slats, and therefore the resultant cut surface of the slats may be still irregular in the end.